That was him.
Adrian stared at the figure in the glass.
No.
At himself.
Knowing it didn't make the image any easier to understand.
He raised his right hand.
The woman raised hers.
Left.
Again, perfect.
Adrian leaned slightly to one side.
So did she.
He stopped.
So did she.
There was no delay.
No trick.
No person standing behind the glass.
Just a reflection.
His reflection.
Adrian looked down at himself.
Wet white hair fell forward and covered half his face.
He pushed it aside.
The movement revealed a smaller hand than the one he remembered.
Narrower wrist.
Longer-looking fingers.
The same hand he'd seen in the chamber.
The same hand he'd already known wasn't right.
Knowing and seeing were apparently two very different things.
Adrian looked back at the glass.
He needed to get closer.
His first attempt at standing went about as well as expected.
One foot beneath him.
A hand against the wall.
Push.
His legs straightened.
His balance immediately shifted somewhere else.
Adrian caught the wall before gravity finished making its point.
Fine.
He stayed there for a moment, one palm pressed against the tiles.
Then took a step.
Bad.
Another.
Worse.
The third became less of a step and more of a controlled fall toward the nearest metal table.
Adrian caught its edge.
Something behind him swept sideways.
His balance corrected.
Again.
He looked over his shoulder.
The white tail moved slowly behind him.
Adrian looked away.
Not dealing with that yet.
The observation window was only a few meters away.
He made it halfway before his legs started trembling again.
Adrian considered his options.
Then lowered himself back onto his hands and knees.
His dignity had already had a difficult morning.
It could survive this.
Moving this way was still disturbingly easier.
His body seemed to understand the mechanics even when Adrian didn't. His weight shifted smoothly. His hands found the floor without searching. Whatever the tail was doing behind him, it kept him balanced.
A few seconds later, Adrian reached the glass.
He sat back carefully.
Then looked up.
The woman was much clearer now.
Young.
That was his first coherent thought.
Not a teenager.
Not even close.
But younger than thirty-eight.
Late twenties, perhaps.
Maybe.
Adrian had never been particularly good at guessing ages.
Her face was narrower than his had been. Softer around the jaw. High cheekbones, though not dramatically so. A small nose. Pale skin made even paler by the harsh laboratory lights.
There was nothing extraordinary about her face.
She wasn't some impossible fantasy of perfection.
She was—
Adrian frowned.
Normal.
Pretty, maybe.
But normal.
Except for everything that very obviously wasn't.
Long white hair hung in wet strands around her face and down past her shoulders.
Actually white.
Not blond.
Not grey.
White.
Adrian lifted a strand between his fingers.
The woman did the same.
He let it fall.
Then looked at her eyes.
His eyes.
Adrian leaned closer.
They weren't brown anymore.
The irises were a warm amber, almost golden beneath the laboratory lights.
And the pupils—
Adrian moved closer still.
Vertical.
Narrow black slits.
He stared.
The pupils contracted slightly as he shifted his head toward the light.
Adrian leaned away.
They widened.
“Oh, that's not good.”
He froze.
The woman in the glass froze.
Adrian's heartbeat jumped.
That voice—
He looked around.
Nobody.
His eyes returned to the reflection.
Her mouth was slightly open.
His mouth.
Adrian swallowed.
The reflection swallowed.
He hadn't spoken since waking.
Not really.
He'd almost done it several times.
Apparently some part of him had known better.
Adrian looked directly at the woman.
“Hello?”
She spoke with him. This story is hosted at g.com.
The voice was unmistakably female.
Higher than his old voice.
Softer.
A little rough, probably from whatever had been down his throat or how long he'd been unconscious, but there was nothing in it Adrian recognized.
Nothing.
He tried again.
“My name is Adrian Voss.”
The sentence sounded ridiculous.
Not because of the words.
Because somebody else seemed to be saying them.
A young woman.
Adrian stared at her.
“Fuck.”
Same voice.
He closed his eyes.
That hadn't helped.
When he opened them again, something at the top of the woman's head moved.
Adrian stopped.
Two pale shapes rose through the white hair.
Ears.
Not human ears.
Longer.
Triangular.
Covered in short white fur.
Adrian stared at them.
One turned slightly.
Toward a sound somewhere behind him.
His stomach tightened.
Slowly, Adrian lifted his hand to the side of his head.
Where his ear should have been.
His fingers found hair.
Skin.
Nothing else.
He searched farther back.
Nothing.
“No.”
The unfamiliar voice said it for him.
His hand moved upward.
Toward one of the things on top of his head.
His fingertips touched fur.
The ear immediately flicked away.
Adrian jerked his hand back.
The ear flattened.
He stared at the reflection.
“Seriously?”
The woman said it.
The ear slowly rose again.
Adrian stared at it for several seconds.
Then touched it once more.
It twitched beneath his fingers.
He felt that.
Not merely the fur against his fingertips.
The ear itself.
Pressure.
Movement.
Touch.
Adrian dropped his hand.
Right.
So those were real.
His gaze travelled downward.
That was where things became considerably harder to ignore.
The body reflected in the glass was smaller than his old one.
Much smaller.
Adrian had spent most of his adult life around one eighty-five.
This body couldn't be anywhere close.
One sixty-five?
One seventy?
Maybe.
The proportions were different too.
Narrower shoulders.
Smaller frame.
A defined waist.
Hips that curved outward in a way his never had.
And breasts.
Adrian stared.
There really wasn't a more useful word for them.
They were simply there.
On him.
Adrian looked down.
Then back at the reflection.
Down again.
For thirty-eight years, he'd had a fairly reliable understanding of which parts were supposed to be attached to him.
That understanding had become increasingly useless over the last ten minutes.
He lifted one hand.
Stopped.
This was absurd.
Then again, so was having a tail.
Adrian placed his hand against his chest.
Warm skin beneath his palm.
Pressure.
Weight.
Sensation from the hand.
Sensation from the body beneath it.
The woman in the glass watched him do it.
Adrian pressed carefully.
Real.
He removed his hand.
Right.
Those were real too.
Good to know.
Deeply unhelpful, but good to know.
His eyes moved lower.
Waist.
Hips.
Legs.
Then farther.
Adrian stopped.
He had already felt the absence while the tank drained.
Seeing it removed what little room remained for denial.
What had been there for thirty-eight years wasn't there anymore.
The anatomy replacing it left very little ambiguity about what the rest of the reflection had already made obvious.
Adrian looked back up.
Woman.
There wasn't another word for it.
Whatever they had done hadn't merely made him smaller.
They hadn't attached ears and a tail.
They hadn't changed a few features.
They had changed his sex.
Possibly his age, or at least what his body looked like.
Everything.
Adrian's breathing quickened.
The ears on his head flattened.
He hadn't told them to.
The tail behind him drew closer to his body.
Again, not something he'd consciously decided.
Adrian noticed both.
His breathing slowed.
Fine.
No.
Not fine.
But panic wasn't going to reverse whatever had happened.
He looked at the reflection again.
Information.
That was all this was right now.
Information.
He turned slightly.
The woman turned.
The tail became fully visible behind her.
Long.
White.
Thick with fur even while wet.
More fox than cat, Adrian thought.
Although the ears could have belonged to either.
He reached behind himself and caught the tail carefully.
Again came that bizarre double sensation.
Fur against his palm.
His palm against the tail.
Adrian squeezed very gently.
The sensation was immediate.
He let go.
Attached.
Definitely attached.
The tail swung once behind him.
Adrian watched it in the reflection.
“Stop that.”
It stopped.
Adrian blinked.
Had he done that?
He tried moving it.
Nothing.
He concentrated harder.
The tip twitched.
Adrian stared.
The tip twitched again.
“Oh, come on.”
He wasn't sure whether that had been him either.
A tiny movement drew his attention back to his face.
His ears.
They had shifted forward.
Adrian stared at them.
Then deliberately frowned.
Nothing.
He raised his eyebrows.
One ear moved.
“That doesn't even make sense.”
The new voice was becoming no less strange.
Adrian opened his mouth wider.
Teeth.
Mostly normal.
Then he noticed the canines.
Slightly longer.
Sharper.
Not monstrous.
Just enough to be unmistakable.
Adrian closed his mouth.
He looked at the entire reflection again.
White hair.
Amber eyes.
Animal ears.
Tail.
A young woman's body where his own should have been.
Thirty-eight years.
That was how long Adrian had spent knowing what he looked like.
He hadn't particularly loved it.
Hadn't hated it either.
It had simply been him.
The person in the glass wasn't.
Except she was.
Adrian raised a hand.
She raised hers.
He touched his cheek.
Warm.
Real.
His fingers moved along an unfamiliar jawline.
The woman followed every movement.
There were no more useful tests to perform.
This was him.
Adrian let his hand fall.
“Okay.”
The unfamiliar voice made the word worse.
He stared at the reflection.
“Okay,” he tried again.
It did not improve.
Silence.
Adrian considered the woman in the glass.
There had to be something positive about this.
Anything.
His eyes travelled over the unfamiliar face once more.
Well.
At least they hadn't made him ugly.
Adrian closed his eyes.
That was not helping either.
A sound came from somewhere beyond the laboratory.
Metal scraping against stone.
Adrian's eyes opened.
His head snapped toward the doorway.
His ears moved before he did.
The humor disappeared.
Right.
He was still naked.
Still weak.
Still inside the facility of the people who had kidnapped him.
And there was blood on the floor.
Adrian looked once more at the woman in the glass.
Questions later.
Survive first.